LIONPELT
Dawn spilled over the sky's dark canvas in a slow scarlet tide, whorls of cloud tinted red and white. Nothing moved in LeafClan's camp yet, no life stirring besides Lionpelt alone.
When he gave up his warrior duties, Lionpelt thought he'd given up care and worry and rising at sunrise. He traded rival warriors for fleas and stiff joints. But he still found himself waiting for sunrise more often than not, rousing out of his feather-lined nest before the first mourning doves.
A lifetime of dawn patrols had broken that sort of idleness out of him before he was old enough to enjoy it, but his new denmates assured him contented slothfulness would come naturally.
"Give it until your first leaf-bare," Close-eye had counseled him with a purr. "The cold only cuts deeper and deeper, and you will be shouting down apprentices for fresher moss in no time."
Lionpelt emerged from under the ancient hawthorn that constituted his new den with a slow, quivering stretch. Dark trees, cloaked in early morning gloom, seemed to frown and bend down over the LeafClan camp with disapproval.
Countless battles and long training sessions, accumulated over too many moons, seemed to sink into his joints at once.
He and Elderheart and Squirreltail sprang from the same litter and were apprenticed in the same moon; it quietly surprised him how Elderheart still rose before the young warriors each day, sprinting out ahead of them on border patrol, the first to rise and last to rest each and every day.
The first to rise besides himself. But it was some nameless, undigested rat that gnawed at Lionpelt from the inside, disturbing his dreams and pulling him out of his nest night after night. That was nothing to commend himself over. Elderheart simply rose for duty, as deputy of the Clan.
Did he ache as badly? He must.
Then how did he still do it? To be deputy at this age, with the weight of the Clan's future dangling over his head? Now that was a true warrior.
He even had a kit in the nursery.
But old Lionpelt must be just an elder now.
Squirreltail had seemed no closer to the elder's den. A senior warrior, but still healthy, still as strong and sharp-clawed as any cat in the forest. Had it not been less than a quarter-moon past when they had last shared tongues together?
But still, old Lionpelt lived to watch Squirreltail buried. With the other elders, he helped smear his pelt with rosemary and watermint, and led his body to the poppy fields where LeafClan's dead rested.
Another good warrior's life snatched away before their natural time. Another star in Silverpelt.
So had all the cats from his litter passed on to their ancestors in StarClan, except he and Elderheart alone now.
With a low shudder, he sought out a flat, smooth stone near the base of the Hollow Ash, and silently bid the sun to rise faster. He knew this was where the first shafts of sunlight would pool, slanting through gaps in the canopy to light their mossy clearing. The elders of his youth had always coveted the same spot, and now there was no one else to claim it.
First out of the warrior's den was Elderheart, as expected. Then there was the first poor young warrior he slapped awake to relieve the night sentry. This day, it was Boulderstep, his second son by a second mate, who ambled out into the crisp morning air as stiff as a corpse. Tufts of fur still stuck up about his flank where he'd been curled asleep.
Murkpool was next, just a pair of eyes glowing from the shadow of the medicine den. His apprentice Shrikepaw was padding for the fresh-kill pile soon afterwards to grab a pigeon for them both. Murkpool had a peculiar taste for them, and it was thorns and thistles for every cat if someone ate one before he could.
But when Rosestar appeared from the mouth of the Hollow Ash, that was when LeafClan camp seemed to spring alive.
He emerged from beneath the tree roots, eyes closed and face upturned toward the direction of the rising sun. Trailing after him was his mate, Ivyflower, who purred a pleasant morning greeting in Lionpelt's direction before padding off. Then, like flies on dirt, the favorites seemed to swarm into the clearing on some natural instinct, as if racing to be the first to greet him. Briarstalk and Larkfeather and Greeneyes, the young queens always trotting at his heels, then Splitears and Rooktuft, Paleface and Asterstripe.
"Good morrow, Rosestar!"
"It promises to be a beautiful day, doesn't it, Rosestar?"
Lionpelt gave a nod of greeting, receiving barely a glance in return as the young leader oscillated between one favorite and then another.
The clearing grew brighter as cats stretched and paced and shared tongues, pulling prey off the fresh-kill pile as Elderheart barked orders to the dawn patrol, herding together one, two, three, four warriors…
The face he'd been aching to see most stalked in like a ragged shadow—from the camp entrance, and not the warrior's den. "My son," Lionpelt called out, but his voice landed unheard among the sunup chatter and morning birdsong.
He watched Rowanthorn, head low and ears laid flat, shoulder his way past his brother Boulderstep and straight toward the Hollow Ash, where Rosestar and his circle had begun to crowd like ravens.
"Rosestar!"
Rowanthorn's shout rang through the clearing with an edge of rage, every head turning toward the russet warrior as he pressed forward. More heads popped out from the warrior and apprentice and elder's dens, ears pricked. A dozen eyes blinked from the low branches of the nursery as the queens emerged one by one.
"Rowanthorn," Rosestar answered gently, twitching his whiskers. "Good morrow to you as well, I think."
The warrior's expression contorted into a snarl, the start of a rumbling growl building in Rowanthorn's throat.
"Rosestar, there is something urgent I must share with you, and the entire Clan!"
Lionpelt sprang up from where he rested, tail lashing. "Rowanthorn, what is the matter?" The warrior only answered him with a fierce golden glare, before turning his eyes back toward his leader. Murmurs rippled through the camp like drones of bees.
Rosestar met his gaze evenly, silent, before turning back to climb up to a low perch in the Hollow Ash. He did not shout out the customary words, but the Clan gathered around the Hollow Ash for a Clan meeting all the same.
"So be it, Rowanthorn. What is so deathly urgent?"
Rowanthorn stood, lips curled to reveal his teeth, gaze snapping to another warrior in the clearing. "On my honor as a warrior," he growled, "Leopardfoot was Squirreltail's killer."
Gasps and yowls of indignations flared up from the assembled warriors. Leopardfoot had been crouched over the fresh-kill pile, half a mouse dangling from her teeth when every gaze turned her way. It dropped half-eaten from her jaws as she turned toward Rowanthorn with a hiss, hackles raised.
"Have you gone mad?!" Leopardfoot yowled. "Why do you lie?"
"Don't engage in games with me now, fox-heart," Rowanthorn hissed, voice rising. "Confess!"
Lionpelt's gaze jumped helplessly from Rowanthorn, to Leopardfoot, to Rosestar, before sweeping over the rest of the Clan. He watched Stonetooth, Squirreltail's former apprentice, knead and claw the earth. Squirreltail's mate, Longscar, could have been made of bark. Her eyes betrayed nothing, except that she watched from the mouth of the nursery with unblinking intensity.
"This is a grave accusation," Rosestar mewed at last, eyes impassive. "What proof do you have?"
"That I swear the MeadowClan border markings were a day stale, and no other outsiders were scented. But our clanmate's throat was still gashed, and not by a fox, or a badger." Rowanthorn's tail whipped furiously back and forth. "So who else? Leopardfoot was the last cat spotted with him on that hunting patrol!"
Lionpelt felt his hackles rise, remembering the terrible wound yawning across Squirreltail's throat, and the claw marks that raked down his flank. He had died in a struggle.
Leopardfoot arched her back, claws raking through the moss as she paced a wide ring around Rowanthorn. "That is no proof at all. I should rip out your throat for this slander."
"Grant me permission, Rosestar," Rowanthorn growled in answer, "and I'll kill this traitor myself."
"Enough," Rosestar commanded, standing to his full height, tail straight upright. His voice carried an undercurrent of simmering fury. "Rowanthorn, just as I know you are honorable, I know Leopardfoot is a true and loyal warrior. I cannot condemn her for something so foul on just these grounds."
"But Rosestar—!"
Rosestar leaped down from his perch now, the assembled Clan clearing a circle around him. "Forget. Forgive. Conclude. Be agreed."
Lionpelt started forward toward his former apprentice, leaning into his ear with strained whispers. "Rowanthorn, make peace. Obey your leader."
"Leopardfoot, you will also stand down," Rosestar said in flinty tones.
Both warriors stood, claws unsheathed, hackles raised, hateful glares locked on each other.
Rowanthorn turned back to Lionpelt now, golden eyes glowing like coals. "My father, my mentor," he mewed. "You taught me to speak truths, and fight for justice."
"Leopardfoot, stand down," Rosestar spoke again. "Be clanmates once again."
"My honor is my life," Leopardfoot protested. "How can I tolerate this fox-heart speaking lies on my name in front of my entire Clan? Call me murderer? I should forget and forgive that?"
Rowanthorn squared his stance, as if to pounce. "And I will say it again for the entire forest to hear. You are Squirreltail's murderer! I will stake my life on it!"
They might have lunged at each other, if not for Lionpelt and Elderheart stepping in between them with unsheathed claws.
Rosestar's gaze shifted from Leopardfoot to Rowanthorn, a deep sigh escaping the leader's throat.
"Here is my judgment," Rosestar pronounced, bounding back onto the Hollow Ash to look down at the rest of the Clan. "If you will not settle with peace, then settle with your lives. After tomorrow's moonrise, if it's still your wish to teach each other's throats… so be it. Let your claws and StarClan decide who speaks the truth."
Another murmur rippled through the Clan, glances and whispers exchanged. Lionpelt watched after Rowanthorn as he melted through the crowd, first at a walk, and then running back into the forest.
As cats broke away into clusters, chattering like sparrows, the elder stood numb and alone in the early morning clearing. Until glancing back toward the nursery, he met Longscar's gaze again, locked in by her unwavering ice blue stare.
The queen had been pretty once. She had a dappled brown coat, white paws, a pink nose, sapphire eyes, but she had earned her warrior name twice over, and the forest knew her for her scars. When a fox nosed its head into the nursery, she had chased it out with the fury of a hundred warriors, leaving three hideous claw marks scored across her face as remembrance for her valor.
Those scars showed her true beauty, or at least, that is what Squirreltail had always boasted. Her old name was a forgotten memory.
Squirreltail could be so sentimental.
She went up a pace ahead of him as they weaved through the trees and prey trails, away from the direction of camp. Lionpelt could open his mouth and practically taste the warm fresh-kill, the fragrant green foliage, hear mice and birds and bugs rustling in the grass, but they never stopped to hunt.
His appetite had been killed as of late. He felt himself growing skinnier, weaker. He struggled up an incline after the queen, as she stood on the lip of a fern-ridged gulley.
"My apologies, Longscar. My legs aren't as young as yours."
Longscar returned a queer look. A touch of embarrassment, and something else he couldn't quite place as she glanced away. "No, my apologies. We can rest and speak here for a while."
They settled in among the ferns, Lionpelt flopping hard down on the grass. Longscar curled up gracefully among the greenery, tail and paws tucked tightly underneath her, her eyes somewhere else. No words passed between them, not until Lionpelt felt he gathered his breath again.
He tasted the air again for clanmates, letting his gaze sweep over the forest floor from the top of the rise, before he felt secure to speak again.
"What Rowanthorn said about your mate's death…" Lionpelt finally started.
Longscar turned that steady gaze back on him now, unwavering. "I believe him."
The words seemed to deflate out of him again, and he was left looking into the grass, clawing up clumps of dirt beneath his paws.
"Don't you?" Longscar pressed when he didn't respond. "I know Rowanthorn's worth, and I know the worth of the warrior who mentored him. His words are enough for me."
"My son would not lie," Lionpelt agreed chokingly. "But I cannot fathom Leopardfoot doing such a thing. For what reason? She's one of our bravest warriors. Loyal to LeafClan and the warrior code."
There was a long silence once again. They had found Squirreltail's body on the edge of MeadowClan territory, half-draped around a river rock, legs dangling in the bubbling current. It had been many lengths downstream from where they'd scented his blood on the bank, saw tufts of gray and russet fur drifting in the shadows.
Attacked by MeadowClan cats, that is what most cats had assumed. They had drowned him, or dumped him in the stream, and the running water had washed any lingering cat scent from his body. He and the other elders groomed him until his fur was dry and fluffy again, discovering a cut there, a scar he'd never known about here.
The murder had been on every cat's tongue. But raking his mind over the past three sunrises, Rowanthorn had almost been a stranger in camp, spending sunup to sundown in the forest.
"Leopardfoot is brave and loyal," Longscar echoed. "She might not be moved to such an act, unless her leader ordered her to do it."
Lionpelt's head shot up, hackles raised. He should have yowled in surprise, or cursed. The accusation should have shivered through him like a thunderbolt, but he only blinked and lowered his head in resignation.
"Rosestar had always quarreled with him," Longscar continued, voice falling to a hushed whisper, "but Squirreltail had been beloved by his clanmates."
It was as if some part of him already knew. He tasted bile in the back of his throat.
"It may be as you say," he said, breathless.
The queen stood up now, tail lashing. "It is as I say," Longscar hissed. "Great Stormstar fathered a litter of seven kits, of which you are one. Some of them lived their natural course, and some of them had their fates trimmed short. But your brother Squirreltail, he was taken to Silverpelt before he was sent for, and we all soak in his blood unless we avenge him."
Lionpelt stood up now, long and slow. He felt creaks and cracks between every bone. Sore paws. Aching back. He might not make it back to camp without a sunhigh nap. "What would you ask a decrepit elder such as me? What vengeance could I deliver you?"
"It is barely three moons since you retired to the elder's den. The greatest LeafClan warrior since Blackfang. Every warrior knows the battles you've fought, the victories you've won. The entire Clan still respects your word, the entire forest—they will follow you." Longscar lowered her head in humility now. "I'm begging you. Save our Clan. Avenge my mate and the father of my kits."
Lionpelt turned away now with stone-heavy steps. "Those old battles are memories and nursery fables now. I can't give you the justice you seek." He glanced back at her, tail drooping. "'The word of the Clan leader is the warrior code.' Rosestar was given nine lives by StarClan to lead us, and I cannot betray him, no matter what comes."
"Who should I ask for help, then?" Longscar asked, her voice suddenly brittle.
"StarClan. Justice belongs to them."
Longscar lashed her tail, starting down the rise now ahead of Lionpelt. "If StarClan controls our fates, then I'll pray they help Rowanthorn's teeth find Leopardfoot's throat tomorrow. But I say the living make their own justice."
Lionpelt simply watched after her as her tail disappeared into the greenery, too slow to keep pace.
Silverpelt's first stars blinked out of a bruised sundown sky, glimpsed through gaps in the Father Oak. The oak's massive limbs stretched over a clearing almost the size of camp, gnarled roots padded with moss and generations of claw marks raking up its thick trunk, thrice as wide as any other tree. The first tree in the forest is what the elders had told him once, as a kit. They trained their apprentices to hunt and fight and climb here, and the Oak guided them.
This had been where he took Rowanpaw out to catch his first mouse, so many moons ago. Where his own mentor, Stormstar, sparred with him from sunup to sundown until he could throw the old leader on his back.
Half the Clan was gathered there now, ringed around the edge of the clearing. Rowanthorn walked along the edge, sharing a quiet word with Asterstripe here and his half-brother Boulderstep there. Sunpaw and his kits stood there as well, Sorrelpaw and Honeypaw and Ryepaw, with Sunpaw's mentor standing close behind like a pale misshapen shadow.
Cats murmured among themselves, and Lionpelt pretended himself too deaf to hear.
"Another star will shine up in Silverpelt tonight," Paleface mewed, mismatched eyes inclined up to the sky.
"This is a savage sport," Beethorn mumbled under her breath.
There was Longscar there as well, eyes fixed on the stars above, standing alone in the shadows.
Finally, Rowanthorn stood before Lionpelt now. Touching noses, all the words he had wanted to speak seemed to dry in his throat.
Rowanthorn broke their silence first. "I hope I have made you proud."
"More than you can know," Lionpelt said, feeling his spirit well up in him now. "Just as I taught you. Strike like lightning, fall twice like thunder, and live."
"Your wise teaching lives in me," Rowanthorn purred.
Across the clearing, Leopardfoot stood flanked by her apprentice and Splitears, who clawed the ground as if he was going into battle himself. Little Jaypaw's fur bushed out as if she'd found an adder in her nest, eyes wide as river stones.
Rosestar sat up high and straight on a boulder at the edge of the clearing, a small crowd gathered around his paws. Splitears took up one flank and then Asterstripe the other, speaking something to Rosestar, who then yowled for the Clan's attention. All the quiet chatter ceased into silence, fading into the gentle background ambience of frog and cricket song.
"The moon rises," Rosestar said, curling his tail. Silver beams caught and gleamed in his pale golden coat now, green eyes glowing in the half-light. "And since our clanmates cannot be reconciled, and lay deadly treasons at each other's feet, their warrior honor can only be satisfied with blood."
The leader's eyes swept over the assembled cats, before locking on Rowanthorn.
"Before your Clan and the spirits of your warrior ancestors, make your claim again, Rowanthorn, and swear by it."
Rowanthorn stepped out into the clearing now, tail lashing, russet fur dappled with moonlight through the shifting leaves of the Father Oak. "I swear, once again, that Leopardfoot is a traitor to LeafClan, to the warrior code, and to Rosestar, and that she was the cause of Squirreltail's death."
Rosestar's gaze shifted to Leopardfoot now. "Now you, Leopardfoot. Swear by your claim underneath the stars."
The tortoiseshell warrior stalked forward into the middle of the clearing, back arched and already thirsting for combat. "I am here to defend my reputation from this foul liar, and swear before all of you that I am a true and loyal LeafClan warrior, and true and loyal to Rosestar."
Lionpelt fixed her with a long stare, wishing his eyes could peer into her thoughts.
"Being so resolved, let StarClan determine the truth of it then," Rosestar said at last. "Allow Murkpool to speak a prayer for your spirits and then begin. Strike true as your word."
The senior medicine cat touched noses with them both, an indecipherable tumble of words falling from his tongue, and then parted with a fox-length between the two warriors.
His heart pounded in his throat as Leopardfoot and Rowanthorn circled each other now, claws unsheathed, ragged growls rumbling from between bared teeth.
A paw darted out for a quick swipe, and Leopardfoot ducked back. She reciprocated, boxing Rowanthorn over the ears. Then he was launching himself at her, the reddish-brown tom and tortoiseshell she-cat tumbling over each other in a writhing mass of fur and claws. Clumps of bloody fur rose up from the two like cottonwood fluff, spitting shrieking fury into each other's face as one cat rolled on top, and then the other, and then the other.
Somewhere along the perimeter, he heard Jaypaw give a shrill yowl of horror, or shock, or some blend of the two. Lionpelt never looked away from the scene, digging his own claws into the moss as Leopardfoot's teeth clicked and gnashed near Rowanthorn's throat, the tortoiseshell holding the young warrior down by his shoulders.
"Enough!"
Lionpelt was almost deaf to the word, but Splitears echoed the leader's command and snapped him back to reality.
"Enough! Rosestar speaks!"
The two fighting cats broke apart with heavy pants, their ruffled fur stuck up and clumped with fresh blood, eyes still locked in deathly fury against the other.
Rosestar stood up now, and Lionpelt swore he almost seemed to tremble.
"Stand apart from each other, and hear me." Rosestar flicked his tail now. "Too much LeafClan blood has stained our hunting grounds already. I will not allow more of it to spill here."
Rowanthorn and Leopardfoot exchanged a glance before looking back up at their leader helplessly. Rosestar seemed to search every face before speaking again, and lingered long on his, but Lionpelt did not know what to read in his leader's green eyes.
"Therefore, I banish you both from LeafClan territory."
A ripple of shock and confusion spread through the assembled warriors, Leopardfoot practically yelping in indignation while Rowanthorn just fell back onto his haunches, breathless.
The LeafClan leader stared down at them both, unmoved. "For you, Rowanthorn, you will not tread on our lands again until ten seasons have passed. But for you, Leopardfoot, there's a heavier punishment, as much as it pains me. You shall never return to LeafClan territory."
Lionpelt felt his breath catch in his throat, heart clenching.
"It must be as you command, Rosestar," Rowanthorn said flatly, all the fire in his voice now quenched.
"This is a heavy sentence, Rosestar…!" Leopardfoot protested. "I have dedicated my whole life to being a LeafClan warrior. How should I live on without my Clan? Forget everything I know, the only home I've ever had? Let me die first."
Rosestar flicked his tail out in a dismissive slash. "This is what I command. You are both exiled, and if any LeafClan warrior finds you within our borders, you will be treated as a rogue and a trespasser. But stay and swear an oath first, before your Clan and your warrior ancestors."
Both exiles approached the boulder at Rosestar's paws, the LeafClan warriors parting a wide circle around them.
"Swear beneath the stars," Rosestar mewed, "that you will never meet in banishment, never embrace each other's love, or resolve your hate, or look upon each other's face, or ever speak. Swear now that you will never plot against LeafClan, or join with our enemies, or break your faith by trespassing our borders or hunting our prey."
"I swear," Rowanthorn mewed hollowly.
"And I," Leopardfoot echoed after him, sounding more like a lost kit than the fierce, serious warrior he'd always known her for. They broke apart again, the tortoiseshell padding away toward the edge of the clearing, trailed by silence.
"Leopardfoot," Rowanthorn called after her. "If Rosestar permitted it, one of us would be dead on the ground by now. If we are exiled anyway, do the honorable thing and confess. Why did you kill Squirreltail?"
She rounded back on him with a sharp hiss. "Never. I am no traitor, whatever my other deficiencies. But I know what you are, Rowanthorn, and too soon, Rosestar and LeafClan will know too." With that, she disappeared with one last glance at her one-time leader, before bounding into the dark wood.
Lionpelt rounded the boulder now, staggering toward his son and once-apprentice, pressing his nose into his fur. His head swam, dizzy or sick. Then he turned, lowering himself down into the grass, stooping at the base of the boulder where Rosestar made his perch.
"Rosestar," Lionpelt entreated. "If I have done worthy service for our Clan, and if being aged now means I can be considered wise… Then I beg you, have mercy on Rowanthorn. Consider his faults to fall on my head, who raised and mentored him. He only meant to protect LeafClan from danger."
His son bristled beside him, but Lionpelt did not spare him a second glance, head lowered to the ground. He did not raise his gaze until he heard Rosestar speak. "Old Lionpelt," the leader mewed gently. "Your grief is felt as my own. For your sake, and the reverence your clanmates bear you, I pluck four seasons away from Rowanthorn's banishment."
"Four seasons in a word," he heard Rowanthorn mewed under his breath. Given and taken away so easily.
"Thank you, that you would lighten Rowanthorn's sentence for my sake," Lionpelt said. "But it does no good to me. In six seasons' time, I will be dead, and not lay eyes on my son again until we meet in StarClan."
The murmurs around them grew louder.
"Quit this. You have many moons to live, Lionpelt," Rosestar spat dismissively, lashing his tail now. "You asked for clemency, and received it. Rowanthorn is banished for these six seasons, and he shall go. Bid him farewell."
Rosestar leaped from the boulder, moving toward camp. The clearing quickly began to empty after him—Larkfeather, Greeneyes, and Briarstalk, Rooktuft, Ivyflower, Paleface. A few parted Rowanthorn with words, some with piteous looks, some with hardly a second glance.
Rowanthorn's children scampered up to his paws, one by one, with a curt touch of the nose, some imperceptible whispers, and they were soon gone as well. He watched Sunpaw stop a moment at the edge of the clearing, peering back over his shoulder, before disappearing into the brush after his heavy-gaited mentor.
"StarClan light your path," Asterstripe called to him. "This isn't farewell forever."
"We'll walk with you as far as we can to the edge of the border," Splitears said.
Rowanthorn didn't give an answer, padding to the edge of the clearing alone with Lionpelt.
"Why don't you speak to your clanmates?" Lionpelt said.
"No clanmates of mine any longer," Rowanthorn said.
His own bitterness seemed to pale and wilt, hearing the heavy grief in the warrior's voice. "I've lived many moons, and I can promise you six seasons are quickly gone."
"But they will go painfully."
"Think of it as a journey," Lionpelt said. "Imagine LeafClan lands are bereft of prey, and you're seeking richer territories, or—"
"Who can fight hunger by imagining fresh-kill? Or fight leaf-bare by imagining the greenleaf sun?" Rowanthorn snapped, a growl exploding from his throat. "There is nothing you can say, nothing I can think, that will change what I am now. I have no Clan. No friends."
"No Clan," Lionpelt echoed with a sigh. "But nothing can wash the true-born Clan blood from your veins, Rowanthorn. Remember that. Remember the code, and your ancestors will remember you."
Rowanthorn absorbed it with silence, his eyes peering off somewhere into Silverpelt above.
Lionpelt glanced back at Asterstripe and Splitears, beckoning them over with a twitch of his tail.
"Come, Rowanthorn. Let us bring you on your way."